This winter, the Norwegians beat the world competition in practically every sport in which skis are used. Perhaps the most striking was in the men’s biathlon, which was dominated by the modern phenomenon of this discipline, Johannes Thingnes Boe. He triumphantly won another World Cup.
Three factors are behind its success – fantastic facilities, the great Norwegian system of top sport and the man behind it.
Forty-five-year-old French shooting coach Siegfried Mazet.
This remarkable man has to his credit no less than 11 overall men’s World Cup victories, 7 Olympic gold medals and 27 World Championship titles.
Siegfried Mazet’s ancestors must have trained in shooting with the regiments of Napoleon’s army. He himself comes from La Chapelle-en-Vercors in the Drôme department, one of the first Alpine ridges south of Lyon. In his youth, he also trained there with the phenomenal biathlete Raphaël Poiré and his brother Gaël, who were at the birth of the famous French biathlon school.
Mazet also tried a biathlon career. In the late 1990s, he was part of the French European Cup team for three years. But he didn’t do very well, ended his active career early, took over the position of supervisor, and in the meantime completed four years of specialized training for coaches. At national level, he led the French junior team around Vincent Jay and Marie Dorin from 2007 before being appointed to the national team support staff in 2008. There, Mazet took over the men’s shooting training. In those 15 years, biathlon has helped to change a lot.
He soon “won” the first Olympic gold. At the 2010 Winter Olympics, his protégé Jay became the Olympic sprint champion. But Mazet already had his colleague, the extremely talented Martin Fourcade, in charge of that. Under his leadership, he became the winner of the overall ranking of the World Cup seven times in a row from the winter of 2011/12, won several world championship titles and Olympic victories. His long-time coach and mentor played a significant role in this.
A Frenchman became a Norwegian
But at best, the French came as a complete shock. In the spring of 2016, Mazet received a lasso from the Norwegian team. There was certainly money involved, but not only money. According to sports newspaper L’Équipe, Mazet’s salary in Norway has tripled. But at the same time, the excellent coach must have been attracted by the great sophisticated Norwegian system of elite sports. He also said it himself that he wanted a change and a new challenge.
“After eight years, I want a new challenge. It was beautiful, but I need something new. When I got this offer, I thought about it for two days and then I gave it my nod,” said Mazet. He later said that he likes the Norwegian way, that his boss is not above him, but next to him. He saw a clear difference in this compared to how things work in France. That Norwegians want to build good friendships with athletes and create trust.
The French took it as treason and there was bad blood between them for a long time. Fourcade did not spare Mazet in his autobiography from 2017 either. It was only at the end of his career in 2020 that he made a conciliatory statement that he no longer felt any anger.
Chief of Norwegian shooting
In the Norwegian men’s team, it was clearly built. The head coach was Egil Kristiansen, Mazet became the boss through firing. It started working right away, and his main charge, Johannes Thingnes Boe, got better. In the first intense season together, he finished 3rd, then 2nd, and completely dominated the winter of 2019. He won all the disciplines, including the overall championship, where he replaced the phenomenal Fourcade for good.
Mazet obviously had a great deal to do with it. Together, they also overcame the difficult covid period, when France was closed for some time. But then he came back and Boe significantly improved his already good shooting. Today it is more accurate and faster. When you saw him shoot at the World Cup Finals in Holmenkolen, Norway at the weekend, he was a fantastic rapid fire shooter.
To be fair. Great results are shown by the entire squadron of Norwegian biathletes. Sturla Holm Lagreid finished second overall this year and Vetle Sjaastad Christiansen finished third. The other Norwegians are 6th and 7th.
“I want them to learn different approaches to shooting, to do it sometimes fast and sometimes slow,” Mazet told Wintersport news some time ago. They say he thinks about even the smallest details. “You can’t win a race lying down, but you can lose it. As I always say, the goal is to get to the quarter-finals, then the semi-finals and finally the standings final. In the finals, you have to be quick and steady with your shots to catch up or calm down when you’re already ahead. I want them to make decisions like in poker. You also have to decide in the last round, that’s how it is,” Mazet explained his strategy.
He is married with two children. When he is not practicing shooting with his charges, you can most often see him on his road bike in the summer, and in the winter he likes to try freeriding in deep powder.
Mazet was successful at almost every stage of his career because he never rested on his laurels, but constantly learned, adapted and improved. “I’ve learned a lot over the years, because without all the athletes I’ve worked with over the years, I wouldn’t be the coach I am today. These are relationships that benefit everyone. It’s a shared path. When you share experiences, you can draw on them later. It’s like a study that is never finished. You’re never done. What is most important to me is the relationship between the coach and the athlete.”
